Skyhunter

by Marie Lu

  Red stands first. The waning fire highlights his towering figure. He nods at me, ready. I’m grateful that at least we’ve come here directly from the training arena, that we are wearing our gear and weapons. And that Adena has been carrying a pouch with vials of Red’s blood since our demonstration.

  “My shop,” Adena breathes. “They’ll ransack it. My tools. I need them.”

  I shake my head. “No time.”

  “They’ll send soldiers after us,” Jeran says. “We need to cover most of our ground tonight.”

  “I’ll gather as many provisions as I can.” I stand up. The night is not cold, but my hands are trembling. “We need to leave within the hour.”

  21

  There’s no fanfare for us this time, no crowds gathered on the sides of the streets to see us go. There is no Striker coat streaming from my back, and I don’t ride tall on the back of a horse.

  Instead, we steal out of the shanties like thieves in the night, in the back of a Basean wagon driven by Decaine, as if bound for one of Mara’s smaller cities to try our luck in the shanties of Spiderfang or Reedhollow. We’ve all stripped off our Striker coats and removed the harnesses looping around our shoulders, taken off our conspicuous weapons and strapped them inside canvas bags instead. I shiver in my inner shirt. The only blades I still wear are the daggers inside my boots. I find myself keenly aware of Red’s body hot beside me, his legs bumping into mine with every jostle. Jeran and Adena sit across from us, their figures outlined by faint slivers of light from a slit in the canvas.

  I don’t like feeling this unequipped when threatened. But we’re all still the deadliest fighters in the country. If they want to capture us, they’ll have some of their blood spilled first.

  The wagon itself is made out of rusted steel, full of holes, and as it goes, it creaks and groans, the faint metallic scrapping from Decaine’s cycling drifting to us and tricking me repeatedly into hearing footsteps or the draw of blades behind us. Through the slit in the wagon’s canvas top, I can see the Outer City’s jumble of scant lights fading away, and beyond it, Newage’s walls fading into the black. Soon, we’re in total darkness, with nothing but a sheet of stars overhead to guide us. It reminds me too much of the night my mother and I had fled into Mara. I have to stop myself from hearing the panting of thousands of fleeing refugees beside me, and the grinding of the Ghosts coming for us in the distance.

  No one says a word. I don’t know how much time has passed before I hear a soft humming in the wagon. It’s Adena, her voice low and throaty, the tune jerky from the terrain that we bounce over. Eventually I recognize the song, though. It’s a song Strikers sing during the end of practice every day, when everyone is tired and ready to head to the mess halls.

  Jeran joins in after a while, and I’m content for the moment to listen to the two of them filling the silences between the bumpy wagon with a reminder of who we are and what we fight for. Even in the darkness, I can make out Jeran still folding and refolding Aramin’s letter, the paper crunching slightly with each crease.

  “I lied during dinner,” he suddenly says, very quietly, so that I lean forward to hear him better.

  “About what?” Adena asks.

  “About why I fight.” There’s a pause before Jeran continues. “I mean, what I said was true, but it wasn’t the real reason.”

  “Because you actually care about Gabrien?” Adena sounds surprised.

  “No. When we were small, Gabrien would find me in the house—playing on the rugs, or by the front door, or in my room—and play a game of telling me what to do. Fetch him water. Fetch his slippers. Sing for him. He said he wanted to practice what it’d feel like to be a Senator, ordering others around. If I did it, he’d think of something else. Eventually I’d stop or complain. Then he’d grab me by the hair and haul me off to the water trough outside, where we kept our horses, and shove my head in until I choked.” Jeran hesitates again. “Sometimes the surface of the water would be frozen in winter, and he’d smash my head through the thin ice to the cold water underneath. But I hated it more in the summer, when the water would fester with mosquito larvae. I’d go back inside smelling like horse spit and mold.”

  “So you became a Striker to learn how to fight back,” Adena mumbles. “Jeran. You’ve never told me this before.”

  “You loved your brother so much,” Jeran replies. “I thought it’d be unkind of me to be so ungrateful for mine.”

  “Gabrien’s not a brother, Jeran.” Adena’s voice is low with anger now. “He’s a monster, same as the Ghosts in the valley, just disguised in silks and smiles. Like your father.”

  Jeran doesn’t argue with what she says, but he doesn’t agree, either. It takes another long silence before he finally adds, “They’re my family, Adena.”

  “So? Your family can also be the poison in your life.”

  I wish there was enough light for me to sign to Jeran. Instead, I just listen. Beside me, Red shifts, sensing the sadness in Jeran’s voice.

  “And did your father know?” Adena adds.

  “Gabrien learned it from my father,” Jeran adds softly. “He said Gabrien couldn’t hurt me if I was smarter about his games.”

  “And did Gabrien stop attacking you after you became a Striker?”

  Jeran’s voice is quiet, but I can make out the silhouette of his head shaking. “No.”

  Because he doesn’t fight back. I know it, because I’ve witnessed how he changes in the presence of his father, shrinks into his skin and erases all signs of the graceful, confident Jeran I’ve seen at the warfront and at practice in the arena. The Deathdancer. And I understand why too. It’s the way I contract into myself at events like the National Hall’s banquet, why I become a silent, withdrawn shell of myself, questioning my instincts. It’s how we protect ourselves.

  “What does Aramin think of it?” Adena asks quietly. She’s the first of us brave enough to bring up the Firstblade’s name.

  Jeran hesitates for so long that I think he won’t answer her at all. Then, finally, he says, “Aramin once asked me to be his Shield.”

  Our heads turn in surprise to him.

  “What?” Adena says.

  “He did?” I sign, even though I’m not sure anyone can see my hands.

  “You were still paired with your brother,” Jeran tells Adena. “If I agreed, I would move into the Firstblade’s quarters in the National Plaza. My rank would surpass both my father’s and my brother’s.” He looks at his boots. “Even though I was inexperienced at the time, our fighting styles paired well. But more than that, he hoped to protect me from my father and brother.”

  As he tells the story, I picture how it must have happened—Jeran meeting Aramin at the Firstblade’s office in the Striker complexes, the Firstblade offering him the position, careful to keep his tone unemotional, telling Jeran he has no obligation to comply. Jeran, mouth open, wanting more than anything in the world to say yes, yet unable to make a sound. Him bowing his head to the Firstblade, then getting up and walking away.

  “Why didn’t you agree?” I ask him.

  Jeran turns his eyes to me. “It wouldn’t have stopped Gabrien or my father. None of this was ever about my rank.” He looks down. “I didn’t want the reason I became Aramin’s Shield to be because of my family. As if they are the reason why the Firstblade approved of my fighting skills.”

  A part of my heart resonates with his answer, and the words of Corian’s father come back to me. He felt sorry for you.

  Adena reaches out to touch Jeran’s shoulder. He flinches, his mind far away. “Well, you’re my Shield,” she whispers. “You should have told me.”

  At that, Jeran gives her a wry smile. “Why? So you could scold me about it?”

  “That’s exactly right,” Adena replies.

  Jeran laughs, and in spite of it all, I can’t help smiling a little. At least they have each other; at least we are in this together. Red shifts against me, and I feel the trickle of his thoughts turn in my direction, envelo
ping me in its warmth. He doesn’t let on exactly what he’s thinking, and I can’t read it, but I do pick up in his emotions a sense of yearning. I stay quiet, too afraid to reach out through our link to ask him what he’s thinking. He doesn’t say a word either. Instead, we let the wagon fall back into its creaking rhythm as the horizon yawns ahead, each of us lost in thoughts about those we love.

  We travel in silence until the first hints of dusk cast the landscape outside our wagon in deep blue. Adena is snoring softly, and Jeran’s head lolls from side to side in sleep, but Red stirs awake beside me.

  “The warfront,” he says, in accented Maran, another word he’s learned in the past few weeks.

  And sure enough, I can see the outline of one of our defense compounds in the distance. There’s another, farther in the valley, but even from here, I can see Karensan flags flying over it. A few more big pushes from them, and they’ll break past the last lines of our defense compounds, making it into the soft belly of Mara and the open lands between here and Newage. Sickness roils in my stomach.

  The wagon finally lurches to a halt here, and an instant later, Decaine’s face peeks in at us through the canvas slit. “You’ll have to go on from here,” he whispers. “There’s a checkpoint I can’t cross.”

  I nod, my bag already slung over my shoulders. Across from me, Jeran shakes Adena awake. “Thank you,” Jeran tells Decaine for me. He shrugs, but his eyes are already darting nervously around, eager to unload his illegal cargo.

  The four of us ease out of the wagon without a sound into the tall grasses, where our shirts and pants blend us into the surroundings. There, we watch the wagon rumble away, Decaine hunched over his cycle as he pedals it back in the direction of Newage. I turn my attention to the defense compound some distance away. There’s a fence with a narrow rampart running all the way from one compound to the next a mile away, and the top of it is patrolled by the occasional soldier. Right now, it’s empty. We should have plenty of opportunity between here and the next checkpoint to sneak into Federation territory. I’m about to map out the route we should take when an image tacked up against the fence makes me blink.

  It’s a sketch of the four of us, along with words written in bold black ink:

  WANTED: FUGITIVES

  Speaker offers 100,000 meins for the

  Capture of

  Talin Kanami

  Redlen Arabes

  Adena Min Ghanna

  Jeran Min Terra

  No one caught our wagon on the way up, but news about our escape has beaten us to the warfront.

  I duck lower into the grasses, my heart racing. The defense compounds usually have lookouts with telescopes, scanning the area for Federation troops and Ghosts, but no doubt they’re now also searching for us.

  “Now what?” Adena signs.

  Jeran nods toward the woods, where the valley leading into the Federation’s territory begins to slope. “If we can make it into those trees,” he answers, “we should be able to get over the border before they can catch us. We just have to cross this grassland first.”

  “The snipers will be aiming to injure us,” I add.

  Adena nods back at Red. “Not him. He’s valuable.”

  I’m not even sure if snipers can hurt Red, not with his unnatural, armored skin and his weaponized body and mind. He may move so quickly that he can dodge the snipers’ bullets, could kill everyone at both defense compounds. But massacring our own side is not the goal we have today. Mara can’t afford to lose more Strikers.

  Red. I nod at him, speaking through our link, and brush my fingers against his arm. He turns his dark eyes to me, and my chest tightens in fear for him. I’ll go first. Stay beside me.

  He seems to know what my intentions are before I can properly articulate them. Stay beside me; shield us with your body so the snipers don’t try to hit us. Help us get through the valley into the Federation’s territory, while I keep an eye out for Strikers or guards that spot us. I can see the understanding in his eyes as he takes in my thoughts and makes sense of them as if our minds are one.

  His gaze turns to the woods ahead. We begin to move.

  It’s slow going through the grasses as we try not to move through them quickly so that the swaying grasses draw attention. But as we go and no responses come our way, I begin to hope that we can pass through uneventfully.

  Then, abruptly, something shines from one of the compound’s towers. I freeze in my tracks like a deer. My heart jumps. It’s a sign to the second compound.

  They’ve spotted us.

  No later than I think this, a shot grazes through the grass and zips past me, dangerously close to striking my neck. The bullet hits the dirt so hard that mud splatters onto my face.

  Instantly, Adena flattens herself to a low belly crawl and speeds up. “Move,” she signs back at us with a cutting hand gesture.

  We copy her and cut through the grasses as quick as we can. Even now, our movements barely register a sound. But when I glance up, I can see the first hints of figures emerging from the nearest compound gates. Strikers with their masks up.

  I’ve been hunted before by Ghosts and by Federation soldiers, but never by Strikers. Never my own. So now, for the first time, I’m on the receiving end of the terror of seeing those sapphire coats heading silently in my direction, and the Strikers’ dark, ominous eyes above the veil of their masks. Friends and allies I’ve sat with in the mess hall. Killers trained in everything I know. One and the same.

  “They see us,” I sign to everyone. “It doesn’t matter now if we hide. We just need to move fast.” So I straighten and start sprinting.

  The others do the same. We cut wildly through the grasses, keeping our heads low and bodies tucked in close so that the snipers firing at us have a harder time. A second bullet hits a foot away from me, a third so close to Red that it grazes his arm, leaving a burnt streak. He doesn’t even flinch.

  The Strikers are closing the distance between us. I wipe sweat from my brow and keep my eyes ahead.

  Then the clearing before us suddenly parts, widening abruptly into a valley thick with trees. We dart for the dim paths of the woods—

  —and run right into a patrol of Strikers.

  If we’d been hunting Ghosts, Jeran, Adena, and I would never have stumbled into enemies like this. We’re trained to track Ghosts and Federation troops, know the sounds and mistakes they make. But pitting Strikers against one another is something else entirely. I didn’t hear them coming, and neither did they hear us.

  There’s the smallest fraction of a second in which we all look stunned at the sight of one another. Instantly I recognize two of them as Tomm and Pira. The other four are faces I know from the arena. They have simply materialized through the dim light of the forest, their silhouettes rippling in the dark.

  The light of recognition hits their eyes at the same time. Then Tomm narrows his eyes and lunges for me.

  Every instinct trained into me now surges through my veins. My body reacts—I duck down and seize the dagger in my boot, then bring it up in time to block his hit with the hilt of his blade. Another Striker aims for my other side, but Jeran’s already there. Somehow he manages to knock the blade from the second Striker’s hand and turn it on him. Adena is fending off the two others, all the while trying to get into her canvas bag of weapons.

  My eyes sweep desperately over to the edge of the forest. The end of the warfront—and beginning of Federation land—is just beyond us, so close I can taste it. If we could just get over, we might run into enemy troops, but at least the Strikers won’t follow us.

  Then I see Red. His teeth are bared. In one mighty sweep, his wings unfurl to their full expanse. He turns his rage in the direction of the Strikers fighting Adena.

  Panic surges through me. I shove Tomm back and send a thought barreling through my link with Red. Don’t hurt them!

  His head whips toward me.

  They’re Strikers, I tell him as Tomm hits me again. This time his hilt catches me in my side
and I dart away, pain lancing up and down my body. Mara needs them.

  As soon as I think this, Pira’s blades flash before my eyes. I flinch. There are just too many of them, and I don’t have my other weapons with me. They’ll capture us at this rate unless we spill their blood. Unless—

  —and then I realize that Pira isn’t attacking me, but clashing blades with Tomm. She shoves her Shield back before giving us an angry glance.

  “Stop playing games and get the hell out of here,” she signs to me with rapid, cutting gestures. Then she whirls to face Tomm as he gives her an incredulous stare.

  “What are you doing?” he signs furiously. “Firstblade’s orders!”

  But Pira just shakes her head. There’s no time to explain, and we’re too close to the border to risk speaking out loud.

  I don’t linger, even though I want to meet Pira’s gaze and ask her why she’s helping us. There’s no time for questions or conversation. Nearby, Jeran breaks away from the Strikers he’s fighting. Adena has managed to wrestle out two of her blades from her canvas bag and connected their hilts together, turning them into a new double-bladed weapon, and slices a deep gash into one of the Striker’s legs. He stumbles, wincing. Still silent, as trained to be.

  I dart for the border with Red. Jeran sees my movement and breaks away from his Strikers long enough to make a run too. Adena stumbles backward, but Jeran reaches her and catches her as she’s about to fall, yanking her upright again and pulling her forward. We all run.

  Red drops back behind us. As we gain speed, he whirls around and bares his wings at the oncoming Strikers. They shrink back slightly, hesitant to attack him. He turns around and tilts his wings down, lifting himself into the air, and glides over us in a single sweep.

  We’re almost there. The forest feels like it parts for us as we sprint. The trees start to look unfamiliar.

  And then I realize, in our mad dash, that the Strikers are falling behind. No, they’ve stopped. They’ve reached the edge of Maran territory, the no-man’s-land where our warfront shifts to our enemy’s, the limit of where they can go.